Archive for January, 2006
dog day after work
Monday, January 30th, 2006Heads and tales: Mall or nothing
Monday, January 30th, 2006
Eastwood euthanized: The long slow death of Eastwood Mall will soon end. Wal-Mart is set to tear down one of the Southeast’s first enclosed malls in May, with a brand new Supercenter arriving in the second quarter of 2007. The nearby Irondale Wal-Mart will close, but the Sam’s Club will be expanded. And the whole shebang will face Montclair Road, rather than Crestwood Boulevard. Just as long as we can get to those $4.99 car stereos and $12.99 vacuum cleaners …
Update: The City of Birmingham will reveal its redevelopment plan for the Century Plaza/Eastwood Mall area at 6 p.m. Feb. 9 at the former Rich’s in Century Plaza.
• Wal-Mart set to tear down Eastwood [Birmingham Business Journal]
Mockingbird maven: One of our favorite authors, Harper Lee, appeared Friday in Tuscaloosa for the awards ceremony for an essay contest based on "To Kill a Mockingbird," her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. She has attended the ceremony at the University of Alabama each year since it began in 2001, despite her reluctance to give interviews or appear in public. Lee’s sole novel has sold 10 million copies in its 46-year existence.
• Harper Lee, Gregarious for a Day [New York Times]
You got Cirqued: Cirque du Soleil is coming March 30-31 to the BJCC Arena for the first time. The traveling show, Delirium, will focus more on music and dance than acrobatics. We hope it’s as enchanting as Mystere, based in Las Vegas. It certainly will be as pricy: Tickets, which go on sale Feb. 6, will be $70 to $100 (not counting Ticketma$ter charges).
• Canadian circus troupe Magic-City bound [Birmingham News]
Also:
- Racetrack to promote Bible study through Scripture-themed blackjack decks
- Inglenook resident suspicious of roaming cookie peddlers
- Leaders promise growth, status quo in coming year
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some dissembly required
Sunday, January 29th, 2006Tab A fits slot B.
Wait, scratched surface and bad screw …
Chair goes to pieces.
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challenger remembered
Saturday, January 28th, 2006tavern toast
Saturday, January 28th, 2006Heads and tales: Women on top
Friday, January 27th, 2006
Lead, follow or get another X chromosome: Birmingham-based Leading Edge Institute wants women to take charge. The nonprofit group teaches female collegians about pressing state issues, and how they can make a difference. The gap is wide: Female members make up only 12 percent of the state legislature. Hear the story.
• Women Leaders [WBHM]
Fire sale: Have we got a deal for you! Homes in your area for sale, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, available for mere hundreds! Save! Save!! SAVE!! Sound too good to be true? Not exactly, when fire districts can auction off houses that are supposedly delinquent in paying off a few hundred in fire dues. A state law put Center Point homeowners in that nightmare scenario, but a Circuit Court date in February will weigh it versus due process protections in the state and U.S. constitutions.
• Auctions scorch residents [Birmingham News]
A Birmingham family album: Vulcan Park has a new photo exhibit, “Common Bonds: Birmingham Snapshots, 1900-1950,” showcasing everyday shots from family life in the early 20th century. Barbara Kelley, education director and curator of special exhibitions at Vulcan Park, said, “This exhibition is all of us. This is everybody’s life. You want to believe this is your family. It’s everybody’s family.” (Our family photos will have to wait for the next half century, but most of them have a thumb in the frame anyway.) The exhibit, which opened Saturday, closes July 31.
• Exhibition stars everyday people [Birmingham News]
Also:
- Downtown trolley actually runs without cable
- City council wins visitation rights for lobbyist in heated custody battle
- Dance recital fails to spark love of arts in parents
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Heads and tales: Making progress
Thursday, January 26th, 2006
Your place and mine: Birmingham Realtors sold a record 16,715 houses in 2005, worth $3.23 billion. The region with the biggest jump in sales from 2004 to 2005? The northern area, including Gardendale and Warrior, with a near 40-percent increase.
• Home sales hit record, average cost up in 2005 [Birmingham News]
Taking off: The Birmingham International Airport accommodated a record 3.1 million travelers in 2005. December was the airport’s 15th consecutive month of growth (not 15 years, as erroneously reported in the story/headline). The previous record was 3 million passengers in … 2001, when the 9/11 attacks crippled the travel industry.
• Birmingham airport reports 15th straight year of growth [Birmingham Business Journal]
Southside’s spiffy space: A popular festival venue is nearly done with its renovations. Caldwell Park — home to Do Dah Day, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra summer series, EarthFest and theater productions — has better drainage and new lights and handrails, with new picnic tables, benches and trash cans on the way. Cost: $220,000.
• Caldwell Park’s Face Lift Almost Complete [Black and White]
Incentive invoice: Progress comes at a cost. In Alabama, that cost is nearly $5 million, but money well spent. The Legislature is working on paying the incentives promised to industries, but it has helped the state make big leaps in jobs and productivity. One economist said, “This is the kind of forecast I’ve been waiting 30 years to give you. Our state economy is vibrant. It is dynamic and it is growing.”
• State owes almost $5 million promised to lure new industry [Associated Press]
Also:
- Midfield pharmacist fills prescription for laughter, Lortab
- Skate punks ruin park experience for taggers, gang bangers
- Trees unite over sorrow for fallen highway brothers
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gone to pieces
Thursday, January 26th, 2006Heads and tales: Next to nothing
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006
A poor showing: The Auburn University Montgomery Center for Demographic and Cultural Research has a study that says 1 in 6 Alabamians are poor. Other statistics are even more grim. In some counties, nearly 30 percent of citizens are below the poverty line. The Alabama Poverty Project, which released the study, has more info. Meanwhile, the state unemployment rate continues to decrease.
• Study finds one in six Alabama residents living in poverty [Associated Press]
The next chocolate Birmingham station: One radio station will have a new sound come Monday: a black news/talk format. Cox, which also owns top performing stations WBHJ (95.7 FM) and WBHK (98.7 FM), will launch the new sound with local veterans Binnie Myles and Chris Talley and … Rev. Al Sharpton. Ironically, the station changing over is former country powerhouse WZZK (105.9 FM), the whitest station in town, except for maybe the Christian contemporary one.
• Black Talk Comes To Birmingham [Billboard]
Manual transmission: Might want to snag the Black and White Annual Manual before it gives way to the next issue Thursday. As usual, the writers have assembled a thorough guide to the city’s cultural options. Or, just thumb through it online. Who are we to judge?
• 2006 Annual Manual [Black and White]
Also:
- Avondale dad knows way too much about boutique sale
- Gas meter reader can’t count that high
- Record spring fever outbreak forecast for March
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street shuffle
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006America’s Next Top Merger: WB21, UPN 68 affected
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
The WB and UPN are joining forces, as the networks combine to form The CW. In Birmingham, this will affect the two Sinclair Broadcasting-owned stations, WB-affiliate WTTO-21 and UPN-affiliate WABM-68, come September.
No word yet on how the merger will affect, if at all, WTTO’s SEC football games through Jefferson Pilot or WABM’s SEC basketball coverage. Also, CBS affiliate WIAT-42 has provided a 9 p.m. newscast for WTTO since October, after Sinclair’s failed Newscentral program signed off, leaving several WTTO employees without jobs.
Updated.
you snooze, you snooze
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006Heads and tales: The Katrina factor
Tuesday, January 24th, 2006
Showusyourtrips!: One of the nation’s oldest Mardi Gras celebrations takes place in Mobile, but has long been overshadowed by its rowdier neighbor, New Orleans. With its competition still rebuilding from God’s wrath Hurricane Katrina, will Mobile benefit from refugee revelers? Some 90,000 are expected for Mobile’s parades and parties.
• Mobile expects larger Mardi Gras crowds because of Katrina [Associated Press]
Billing department: Helping Alabama during the Katrina crisis cost roughly $33 million, and now the federal government is billing the state. By law, the state must chip in one-fourth of the cost, or $8.3 million. Katrina will likely be Alabama’s second-most expensive storm, right behind … Hurricane Ivan of 2004.
• Feds: Alabama owes more than $8 million [Mobile Register]
Any port from a storm: More than 24,000 Katrina evacuees are still in Alabama, with more than 5,000 in Jefferson and Shelby Counties. Most have settled into new jobs and schools, but the trauma remains. Bessemer native Marie Sandoval fled Slidell, La., with her family and said three-year-old daughter was traumatized by the storm and the sudden relocation. “We thought she would just forget about it after a while, but she brings it up every day. She asks, ‘Why did our house get broken?’ She always asks about her old room.”
• Many evacuees make permanent home here [Birmingham News]
Also:
- Glossy social mag reveals hot parties, facelifts
- Bartow Arena to be torn down for new Taco Bell, Arby’s, DVD store
- Who we’re praying for in 2006: Nagin, Alito, Tom-Gelina
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